


the soldier and the librarian

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Mummy (1999)
Genre: 1920s, 1920s social justice warrior Daisy, Adventure, Coulson and Joey are BFFs in this for some reason, Coulson is a shy librarian, Crossdressing, Daisy is a scoundrel, F/M, Gender Role Reversal, Loss of Virginity, Movie Fusion, Mummies, Not Leo Fitz Friendly, Older Man/Younger Woman, Romance, THIS HAS NO LITERARY REDEEMING VALUE AT ALL AND I'M SO SORRY, Unresolved Sexual Tension, also Trip and Joey fall in love, and Fitz is evil, and talk about cultural appropriation, they fight mummies together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 03:43:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6736732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin: a crossover with The Mummy where Daisy is Rick and Coulson is Evelyn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Persiflage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/gifts).



Phil Coulson has never been kissed.

Years spent deciphering the secrets of the mythical (and fantastical, many believed) Hamunaptra didn’t leave him much time for kissing. Plus he’s a proper gentleman, he doesn’t go around kissing people willy-nilly. Cairo, in 1923, might be a very sociable environment, but Phil Coulson isn’t.

That’s why, at fifty, he has yet to be kissed for the first time, which makes what this, rogue, this scoundrel Captain Johnson does to him even more unforgivable.

This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t half-destroyed the library he works in, he admits this.

Phil was just trying to return a book on Tuthmosis to its proper place on the shelves. But after knocking over (accidentally!) every bookcase in the place (every last one!) and faced with the task of having to clean up the mess (and making it up to the museum’s curator and his boss, Professor Hand) investigating one of the worthless trinkets Joey Gutierrez brings to his attention seemed like a much better idea.

“I promise, I didn’t steal it,” Joey had declared, as if he would ever suspect him of anything like that. 

Phil was expecting another bust, after five years of scouring ruins together, but this time, as Phil turned the box-shaped objected in his hand and recognized the seal of Seti the First…

“Where did you find this?”

“In a dig in Thebes,” Joey had told him. “Did I found something? I’ve never found something in my life.”

As it turns out Joey wasn’t being entirely truthful to him. He hadn’t found it, exactly - he just bought it off in auction from the belongings of an imprisoned American soldier. How this valuable object ended up in some soldier’s possession is another mystery.

Which is why they are here today, visiting the prison.

“What is he in prison for?” Phil asks when they arrive to the holding pen.

The warden shrugs. “She said she was just looking for a good time.”

Phil hesitates. He’s at home between books, safe in his library getting chastised by Victoria Hand when he indulges in “extravagant filing methods”. He’s never really done anything in his life. Much less something adventurous. Even something small like visiting a prisoner in jail.

“Do you really think this is the key to the City of the Dead?” Joey asks him, looking at the incomplete map they found inside the box.

“It’s said to be a myth,” Phil reminds him. He’s been told so more times than he cares to remember. He can hear Hand’s words in his head: _we’re scholars, Mr Coulson, not treasure hunters_. “It disappeared around 2,134 B.C.”

Joey’s face falls. “I guess it’d be too much luck if we were the two guys to find it.”

“Yeah, too much luck.”

Suddenly resolved he asks to see the prisoner.

They go through rows of cells in the pen until the warden signals they’ve arrived at their destination. Phil is a bit shocked by all the bother: the criminal is a young woman, kind of small, of Asian features, dressed in French Legionaire clothes, but filthy and rough, and chained even inside the cell.

“But she’s just…” he breathes, not sure what to make of her.

The girl looks at Joey first.

“Who’s the handsome guy?” she asks, gesturing towards Phil.

Phil tries not to blush. It’s likely that this is the first time anyone has ever called him handsome and the tone can’t be anything other than mockery. He forces himself to focus, stepping closer to the bars.

“We found your box, Captain Johnson,” he says, showing the ancient artifact to him, but keeping it hidden from other, curious gazes. “We’ve come to ask you about it.”

Johnson smiles and shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

Phil and Joey exchange a look.

“What?”

“I’m not an idiot, I know you’ve come to ask me about Hamunaptra.”

Phil stares at her. This is the first time in his life that he has heard someone speak of that place as if… as if it were real. He knows even Joey thinks he’s crazy and most of the time he’s humoring him with this stuff. It has been all in his head up until this moment. And then this Johnson woman...

“How do you know they’re connected?” Phil asks.

“Because that’s where I found the box,” she says. Then she looks at Joey. “Before your colleague stole it from me.”

“It was a legal auction,” Joey protests.

“Shut up for a moment, Joey,” Phil tells him, gently.

Captain Johnson smiles at him. Whether she’s been in the City of the Dead or not it’s obvious she believes it.

She grabs the bars of the cell and the guards behind them get itchy. Phil knows they don’t have much time.

“I was there,” the woman says, looking directly in the eye.

She’s in a cell, with a criminal record, and her attitude is not exactly friendly. Phil should know better than to trust her.

“You swear?”

“Yeah, a goddamn lot.”

He is confused for a moment. “No, no, I mean - you swear you were there?”

“I know what you mean, I was teasing.”

“Can you tell us the exact location, where you found this?” he insists, trying to get through her bravado.

The woman narrows her eyes at him. 

“Want to know?” she asks.

“Of course, that’s why I’m here,” Phil replies, getting closer to the cell until they are eye to eye.

The guards come and attempt to hold her back but she seems too strong for them.

“Really want to know?” she whispers.

He steps forward - foolishly as it turns out, Johnson is _a criminal_ \- and whispers “Yes” because Hamunaptra has been his passion for many years and this is the closest he’s ever felt to it. This young woman, this wretched mercenary held by chains.

But chains or no chains she’s still able to overpower her guards and through the bars of her cell press her mouth to Phil’s mouth.

Phil has never been kissed before. Until now.

“Get me out of here and I’ll get you there,” she tells him as the guards tear her away from Phil.

He is… stunned, outraged (in a moment, he needs to get some air first). There was tongue! He is a gentleman and that was no lady’s kiss. It was… very distracting, he’s very distracted, barely noticing how the guards take the woman away quite forcefully.

“That was amazing,” Joey says, watching the guards leave.

Phil leaves his mouth open for a moment. He can still taste her. She was rough with him, he can still feel her face pressed against his.

Leaving his personal feelings aside Phil knows the girl is his only chance at finding the City of the Dead. Or at least his best chance, god help him. And he didn’t like the way those guards were handling her.

“Where are they taking her?”

Joey gives him a worried look.

“To hang, I’ve heard.”

“To hang?”

What the hell did she do?

“We need to save her, she’s the only one who can get us to Hamunaptra,” Joey tells him.

“Also maybe we shouldn’t let a young woman get hanged,” Phil points out.

“Of course, that too.”

 

+

 

The next day Phil Coulson finds himself with remarkably less personal funds (used to bribe the authorities to let Daisy Johnson go, for the amazing sum of three hundred pounds) and with his first kiss stolen, robbed, taken away from him by this uncouth criminal.

“You think she’ll show up?” he asks Joey. They still have the map, but no expertise on this kind of adventure whatsoever.

“I think so,” Joey replies; he’s seemingly changed his mind about their new colleague, after securing her release last night. Apparently he accompanied the young woman to pack up her things and ended up having a drink together in the hotel bar. Joey is too sociable, he thinks. “I think she’s the kind of person who keeps her promises.”

“I just - I don’t think I like her,” he confesses. “She’s rude, untrustworthy, a complete scoun-”

“I hope you’re not talking about me,” a voice says behind Phil.

He turns around and there Daisy Johnson is. But she looks nothing like she did yesterday. She’s still wearing men’s clothes, but instead of the rags she had to keep in prison she’s wearing a new white linen suit under which Phil can see her holster and her two pistols. She’s bathed, obviously, and cut her hair to shoulder length and if he didn’t know her from before Phil would never guess she’s a foul-mouthed, dangerous criminal. She would almost look _dashing_ to a stranger.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she adds.

Three hundred pounds.

Phil wonders what she did that getting her out of prison required such a bribe. He’s not being illogical, he feels, distrusting her.

“Are you sure you remember the way to Hamunaptra?” he asks.

She rests on hand on her hip.

“Everyone I was there with died in Hamunaptra,” she says. “Believe me, the path is kind of drilled into my head.”

A shiver runs down Phil’s spine. Dead people. If what she says is true this is serious. Thrilling, sure, but dangerous. He knows that if he takes that boat, if he lets this woman help you accomplish his lifelong dream, nothing will ever be the same.

Captain Johnson smirks at his nervousness, not waiting to see if his doubts win out in the end. She leads.

“Please, let me take your bags, Mr Coulson,” she says, lifting his and Joey’s bags as if they weighed nothing, and and marching on into the ship.

Joey chuckles.

“Yes, she’s very rude. You don’t like her at all,” he comments humorously before boarding.


	2. Chapter 2

The guy is not going to last until Thebes if he doesn’t get out of those prissy librarian clothes. Now that’s a thought.

And where is the guy? Daisy had enough trouble trying to keep Joey’s mouth closed when they discovered The Americans (yes, her crew is also American, but this is a specifically American expedition) were also travelling in the same boat. She blames Lieutenant Antoine Triplett of course. He’s way too charming and Joey is way too gullible and lovestruck (and also a really bad poker player, in every sense) and Daisy was trying to hide the fact that she was going to Thebes with them.

But now the element of surprise is gone and now the American expedition knows they have some competition. Great.

She finally finds Mr Coulson sitting at a table on the deck, bent over some dusty book, so engrossed in it he doesn’t notice Daisy approaching. She smiles and drops her satchel on the table with a loud thud.

Coulson startles like a little forest animal.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she lies.

“I’ll live,” he says, removing his cute librarian glasses and putting them in his pocket. “If your manners can’t scare me nothing will.”

He is still bothered by what happened at the prison. What a sensitive one. He’s like nobody she has ever met before.

“You can’t still be mad that I kissed you.”

Coulson looks away, pretending to go back to his papers. Dusty, boring, librarian papers. It’s almost adorable.

Daisy smiles and shakes her head. Look at what he’s wearing now. So many buttons… She opens her satchel, putting her pistols on the table, as well as the three knives she’s carrying, decided to clean the lot in front of Phil Coulson’s disapproving face.

“I thought we were going to Thebes, not to war,” he comments when he sees the whole arsenal. He’s still pissed off at her but Daisy can detect a hint of curiosity here, maybe excitement. She’s going to do whatever she can to keep him out of danger but she gets the feeling he might be secretly hungry for an adventure.

“The Bedouin and the Tuaregs believe Hamunaptra is cursed, the doorway to hell.”

“ _Passage to the underworld_ would be the correct translation,” he says, contrary.

“In both cases it seems like a lot of risk for a book.”

“The Book of the Living, that's what everyone is looking for. One of the most famous books in history. But I'm more interested in the other one - The Book of the Dead. That’s why I’ve spent years researching that city, it’s my life’s passion.”

Daisy tilts her head.

“People just prefer the one that's made of gold.”

Coulson leans back into his chair.

“I see I’m not the only one who reads history books,” he says, looking pleasantly surprised.

His scholarly pride would probably hate the idea of being in an expedition with a girl who dropped out of school at twelve.

She shrugs. “I’m a treasure hunter, Mr Coulson, it’s my business to know.”

The man leans across the table. “I get the feeling there’s something more, something you’re not telling me, Captain Johnson.”

She holds his gaze. He’s not stupid and that’s a problem. Daisy doesn’t want to lie to him and that’s a bigger problem. But she can’t let anyone put that book in a box and ship it to London or wherever. That’s if the Americans don’t get there first.

“I’m not in the army anymore,” she tells Coulson, deflecting. “You don’t have to call me _Captain_.”

“Miss Johnson?”

 _Daisy_ , she thinks. _Call me Daisy_.

“I’m no lady either. Just - Johnson would do. That’s what everybody calls me.”

Phil Coulson looks at her, he seems to be seizing her up for a moment. He considers her clothes - the rolled up sleeves and the leather wristbands.

“Why did you kiss me?” he asks.

He looked like he was in need of a good kissing, for starters. She was doing him a favor.

“They were going to hang me,” Daisy says, cleaning her service pistol. “I thought it was a good idea.”

Mr Coulson looks at her troubled. He doesn’t seem like someone people try to kiss often, much less attack like she did. She is used to being around men who don’t think too much of their virtue but Phil Coulson - he seems like a virginal flower and suddenly Daisy feels awful about what she did. No one should be treated like that.

“I apologize,” she says. “I shouldn’t have assaulted you.”

He looks at her like he is surprised, even in awe, of such sensitivity. She guesses she doesn’t look the part. No one would look at her and think she has tact or class or general fine feelings. Not someone like Coulson, anyway. He’s older and proper and-

“The Americans have their own scholar, you know,” he says, changing subject.

“Another stuffy library rat, yeah I saw,” she replies, thoughtlessly. “No offense.”

He smiles a bit. He has a nice smile, Daisy thinks. Shy but warm.

“Theirs is a bit of a celebrity. Leopold Fitz,” he explains. “The world’s foremost Egyptologist.”

Daisy snorts, winks at Coulson. “Doubt he’s better than ours.”

She can feel his ears going red from that, but he recovers well.

“It’s different, he’s more… official.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s respected, a force to be reckoned with in the academic world,” he goes on. Daisy still doesn’t get it. “He went to Bembridge, he's a _Bembridge scholar_ , he’s had many papers to his name. I just work for the British government. I’m mostly self-taught.”

“I didn’t know that,” she says, a bit embarrassed because she saw his whole shy librarian get up and _assumed_.

“I’m just the guy who has spent his life chasing a city no one believes exists.”

“Well, I’ve seen the city,” Daisy reassures her. “And their scholar didn’t look like he could survive a day in the desert.”

“And _I do_?” Coulson jokes.

She smirks at him.

“No,” she tells him. “But you’ve got _me_.”

 

+

 

Coulson needs time alone to study (must be a stuffy librarian thing) and Daisy, once she’s got her weapons in order, takes a chance to walk around the boat and seize up their rivals. Well-trained, well-funded, depressingly well-armed, and Trip has been in more missions than her. They’re obviously the underdog here. What’s her crew? A disgraced lady soldier, a bumbling scholar who has never been burnt by the desert sun and… well, she’s not sure what Joey is, apart from passed out drunk on a chair right now, muttering some romantic stuff in Spanish in his sleep.

She goes to the deck to enjoy the night breeze. She was trapped in that prison for weeks. She thought she was going to die without seeing the Nile again.

When she turns back to the common area she sees Trip standing behind her, smiling at her.

“So Hamunaptra, uh?” he says, like they can just pick up their last conversation, over a year ago. For a while there she thought he had been killed. For a while he was convinced Daisy had been lost to the desert. They’re just happy to see each other alive, no matter on which side of the competition. She guesses that’s the kind of friends they are.

“Yeah. Small world.”

“I thought you said you’d never go back to that creepy place again,” Trip points. “Your words, not mine.”

He obviously has no idea what awaits them at the end of the journey. Daisy can’t explain. Two years ago her whole battalion was reduced to bones and sand and oblivion. She’s not sure why she’s alive, but apparently she never learns from her mistakes.

“Don’t you know us women change our minds very often?”

Trip smiles at her, not buying it. Too smart to be a mindless cowboy like the rest, too loyal to make a profit in this business.

“Come on, girl, what’s your angle? Why are you really here?”

Daisy gestures towards the end of the deck, where Phil Coulson is looking at the horse pen with such curiosity. She wonders if he even knows how to ride one.

“You see that stuffy librarian there?” she tells Trip.

“Uh-hu.”

“He saved my life,” she explains. Simply, solemnly.

Trip doesn’t question her motives anymore.

“Why don’t we make it a friendly bet?” he offers.

Daisy raises an eyebrow.

“Race you to the temple?”

“500 dollars.”

She laughs. Sometimes she forgets Trip comes from army royalty.

“I’ve never had 500 dollars in my life, sorry.”

Trip grins. “ _Ten_ dollars?”

“Deal.”

 

+

 

Not the black-dressed warriors again.

She thought she’d have to face them again, but not so soon. Had they follow her since Cairo? No, it’s not her they seem to be after this time.

Daisy cocks the gun at her hip and follows the wet footprints that lead to Coulson’s quarters. 

“Where is the key?!” when Daisy opens the door there’s one them covering Coulson’s mouth with his hand, threatening him with a knife.

Daisy aims and hits the guy on the shoulder, getting him away from Coulson. He looks at Daisy, both pistols in her hands, and retrieves through the window before she can make a second shot.

“Are you okay?” she asks, holding Coulson up.

“I’m fine.”

She notices that he is wearing a very old-fashioned and quite feminine nightgown.

“You sleep in _this_?”

“They’re very proper clothes,” he replies, sounding himself pretty unconvinced.

“They don’t look so proper from where I’m standing,” Daisy points out, turning around to shoot through the window.

Another attacker, falling backwards on the deck.

Coulson stares blankly at her and she can’t tell if he’s impressed or horrified by the violent spectacle.

“Who are these people?” Coulson asks. Sounding like he really means how many are there? because by now they can both feel them closing in, the sounds of battle going through the whole ship.

“They’re after the box,” Daisy says, grabbing his arm and pressing him against the wall as she peeks outside the room. “There’s more coming.”

As she says it gunshot blasts into the room - these guys have guns now, great - and it doesn’t get them but it knocks out a kerosene lamp and the little table in the middle of the room catches fire.

And everything around it starts catching fire.

Very fast.

Daisy grabs Coulson by the wrist. “Gotta go _now_.”

“Where? We’re on a boat.”

Daisy leads him out of the room, putting her body between Coulson and potential danger.

Bullets fly by her head. She’s used to it, but Coulson seems alarmed.

“We need to find Joey,” he says.

Daisy returns the fire, gesturing for Coulson to stay behind her.

“He can take care of himself,” she says.

“Can he?” Coulson asks, doubtful. He grabs Daisy by the shoulder and pulls her back just when a bullet hits the wall besides her, right where she had been standing.

“Mm… thank you.”

She’s a bit wrongfooted that a librarian from the city just saved her life. Twice now.

The fire keeps growing, it’s not just coming from Coulson’s room anymore, but everywhere.

As do the sounds of guns going off around them. The American expedition fighting back against the black-dressed warriors as well.

She deals with a couple of their attackers.

“You have very interesting friends, Miss Johnson,” Coulson comments, walking behind her.

She doesn’t point out that this time they seemed to be interested in _him_.

“Just Johnson would do,” she reminds him. “They’re the Medjai. They really don’t like museum types like you or treasure hunters like me stepping into their territory.”

“Their methods seem a bit extreme, but I understand.”

Daisy throws him a glance over her shoulder. He might not be completely hopeless. When the time comes he might even be on her side. Or at least maybe he won’t hate her when he discovers she’s lied to him. She only met the guy yesterday, and he is ridiculous, but for some reason the idea of Phil Coulson hating her disturbs Daisy.

She shakes those thoughts off by emptying the chamber and opening a way to the deck area.

Fighting, mayhem, and in a moment the whole barge is on fire. 

There’s only one way out and forward.

“Do you know how to swim?”

Coulson widens his eyes at her (he does that a lot) and Daisy doesn’t wait for him to answer, she grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him overboard with her, both jumping into the dark river.

As it turns out Phil Coulson knows how to swim, and pretty well, even in a nightgown.

They reach the shore in less than five minutes, where Joey is already waiting for them, panting and shivering under the moonlight.

The three of them look back at the boat as fire engulfs it. Daisy hopes everybody got out of there okay.

“We lost the map,” Coulson says, catching his breath.

“It’s fine,” Daisy tells him. “I can get you there.”

“We lost the box,” he adds.

Joey raises his hand like a schoolboy.

“Uh… I don’t think so?”

He retrieves the mythic box from his pocket, showing it to the other two.

“Joey you’re a wonder,” Daisy tells him, grinning.

She looks over her shoulder to check with Coulson, who is also nodding at the other man in approval.

Daisy looks at him, the wet fabric of his nightgown clinging to his skin in a way that left nothing to the imagination. This is not the kind of body she was expected from a librarian, she admits, looking at the strong shoulder and the chest and the...

“We need to get you some clothes,” she tells him. Urgently.

“Y rápido,” Joey agrees.

 

+

 

Despite having big brain Leopold Fitz on their camp Trip and the American expedition ends up on the wrong side of the river, which gives Daisy’s team a slight advantage.

They need to find transportation first.

They stop at a little oasis town where Coulson’s language skills are extremely useful. Only theoretical knowledge until now the man seems to thrive when he puts what he’s learned in a dark and musty library to practice. He just gets on well with people. Daisy watches him be pretty damn charming with Bedouin merchants and in the end he secures three camels for the expedition, and a change of clothes for himself. It would have been unfortunate, after a lifetime looking for the City of the Dead, if he were to enter it in a ruined nightgown.

When he emerges from one of the tents he looks like a different person. He’s changed into a dark blue Bedouin dress, tight-fitting, with a headscarf, and gorgeous. Nothing of the librarian with too many buttons remains. Daisy tries not to gape. But there’s no way Coulson can overlook her obvious expression.

“Come on, Johnson,” he says. “I understand you might win ten dollars on this.”

He’s the first one to mount his camel, Daisy and Joey following.

“I hate camels,” Joey complains, making a grimace at the smell.

Daisy looks ahead and Phil Coulson is happily patting the head of the animal like it’s a cute pet and generally looking like he’s having the time of his life.


	3. Chapter 3

“Aren’t you going to share the ten dollars with me?” Phil asks, as they go down the excavation site. He saw Lieutenant Triplett hand her the bills a few minutes ago. “I’m the one who won the bet for you.”

Daisy Johnson raises an eyebrow, but she concedes. Phil and his camel had reached the entrance of the temple before anyone else - including her.

“Maybe I’ll buy you a drink when we get back to Cairo,” she tells him, the tone unmistakeable.

He is eager to change the subject from _that_. It would be an understatement to say that he’s never met anyone like Captain Johnson (just _Johnson_ , he remembers, wondering idly if she would let him call her Daisy someday) and it’s not like he’s a traditional guy, he doesn’t think so, but sometimes her forward style baffles him. Especially because he knows she’s just teasing him. She can’t really think someone like her and someone like him…

“I’d like to get a change of clothes as soon as possible,” he comments.

“Why? You look great like this,” Johnson says. “I mean - you look fine. They’re practical.”

“Yeah but…”

They come into a lower chamber. Phil makes a gesture so that Johnson brings the torch closer to the wall. 

“But a white guy is not supposed to wear those clothes?” she adds. Phil nods. “I never thought I’d hear a stuffy Bembridge scholar say something like that.”

Phil focuses on the writing in front of him. These tombs are often full of traps, still active after centuries and centuries.

“We’ve already established I’m not a Bembridge scholar.”

“It’s not like you’re wearing it for fun, right? You were in a pinch and those people helped you. But I’ll ask Trip if I can borrow some clothes from him, anyway, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Thank you.”

She looks at him in a weird way, Phil is half-convinced there’s something else she hasn’t told him yet (apart from the tribe of assassins who are now after all their heads because of that box). She has been looking at him weird for a while. Phil thinks about this past sunrise, when he realized he had dozed off while riding his camel, and when he woke up the animal was advancing right next to Johnson’s, and he had his head leaning against her shoulder. He apologized for such an un-gentlemanly accident and she had looked at him in such a strange fashion.

Joey comes back to join them in the tomb.

“I already set up the mirrors,” he says.

“You have any idea of what we’re after here?” Johnson asks them.

Joey smiles. He has spent many hours listening to Phil rant about the possible treasures hidden under the sand in Hamunaptra. The young woman, on the other hand, is still sore that they left the best-looking part of the terrain to the American expedition, right in front of the temple, while they retreated to the statue of Anubis, at the end of the ruined city. She wasn’t that impressed when Phil told her they were entering a room no one had entered in four thousand years.

“According to the Bembridge scholars,” he starts, throwing an amused glance towards her, “inside the statue of Anubis there’s a secret compartment.”

“And that’s where the Book of the Dead is supposed to be.”

“Exactly.”

Phil can imagine Professor Hand’s face if he showed up in Cairo with such a treasure. One everybody was so sure didn’t exist. They’d probably name a museum after him.

“And I’m guessing these mirrors are some sort of trick to reveal exactly where the book is.”

“You’re a very quick study, Miss Johnson.”

She smiles, like she enjoys the compliment. It was just a joke but the truth is - she is a very smart one, that much was obvious from the beginning. Except for Joey and Professor Hand he is used to dealing with people who don’t respect books or learning or ancient history. Daisy Johnson might look like a soldier of fortune on the outside (and she does do a lot of shooting with her two guns, that much is true) but she is not slow when it comes to bookish stuff either.

“Help me with that?” he asks, unable to turn one of the big mirrors upwards.

Johnson walks around him, pushing her weight into it. She gets a little too close and Phil remembers waking up this morning to see her face first of all, how lazily good that had felt, under the desert’s rising sun. Her short hair is tickling his temple. He steps back.

“Thank you, that’s- that’s more than enough.” 

They finally get the mirrors lined up to get some light into the chamber. 

It takes Phil only a second to recognize where they’re standing.

“This is where they make mummies,” Joey says, sounding excited.

“Creepy,” Johnson says.

“Well, you’re not wrong. The preparations to enter the afterlife are not very pleasant.”

 

+

 

They explore the passageways around them for a while. Phil could get lost in the priceless knowledge of these walls. Daisy Johnson, however, advises them to be vigilant, and keeps her hand resting on her holster, ready to draw. Phil wonders what horrors she’s faced that she is so mistrustful of everything. He realizes he knows almost nothing about her.

They go back closer to the surface now, the foot of the statue, and that’s when they bump, almost literally, with the American expedition.

“Come on, Daisy, don’t raise your gun to a friend’s head,” Lieutenant Triplett says, even though he himself has his own pistol aimed at Phil’s little group.

The Americans are a larger crew, and better prepared. If they want to take over the whole City of the Dead, they have the manpower to do so.

“Professor Fitz,” Phil says, spotting the young genius hiding behind the guns and rifles. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. It’s an honor.”

Leopold Fitz narrows his eyes at him. “And you are?”

He feels Daisy Johnson’s gaze on him for a moment. He will not take it personally.

“I work for Professor Hand.”

Triplett smirks. “So here we have a British scholar trying to get the treasure to American soil and an American scholar working for the British.”

“And you and me in between, Trip,” Johnson warns. “This passage is ours.”

“I don’t see your name on the walls.”

Phil makes a quick calculation. There is another way - one the Americans haven’t found yet.

He touches Johnson’s arm, prompting her to lower her gun.

“Come on, there’s plenty of City of the Dead for everyone,” he tells her.

She holds his gaze and Phil silently pleads for her to understand what he’s saying. She nods, but imperceptibly, only he can see it because he’s close enough.

She uncocks her pistol, seemingly docile. Phil hears Joey letting out an audible sigh.

“All yours, gentlemen,” she tells their rivals.

 

+

 

“They ripped your brain through your nose?” Johnson asks, as she goes through the pages of Phil’s book. 

“With a red hot poker,” Phil points out.

She makes a face. He had seen her face bullets and fire and even a sentence to death, no problem. But the details of mummification gross her out. He chuckles. She looks young and not-dangerous when she has that expression.

“We’re right under the statue,” Joey explains. He goes at it with a sledgehammer. “It’s like you said. We just have to wait until tonight and steal it from under their noses.”

Johnson bumps his shoulder playfully. “That’s pretty sneaky.”

“Thank you.”

“And you were cool under pressure back then,” she goes on. “You’re full of surprises, Phil Coulson.”

He smiles at her, enjoying the attention a little too much.

Then a loud noise interrupts them and they both jump back and away from each other.

“I don’t think this was supposed to be here,” Joey says, staring that the huge object that just fell through the roof. “I’m pretty sure the Bembridge scholars would disapprove of this. Phil?”

He gets closer to the object.

“My God… it’s a sarcophagus.”

“But…” Joey starts looking nervous, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Johnson looks from one man to the other.

“Why are you so shocked? This is a tomb. It’s not logical that there’d be the odd sarcophagus here and there?”

“But this was buried right under the foot of the statue,” Joey insists.

The young woman gives Phil a blank look.

“What does that mean?”

He can’t stop looking at the inscriptions, his mind overwhelmed by this new information.

“It means…” he tells her. “That whoever is buried here was very important. Or a really bad guy.”

That’s when they hear screaming.

 

+

 

“What did Lieutenant Triplett say?” he asks.

Johnson sits, almost dropping her weight to the ground, between him and Joey. The fire starts crackling for real in front of them. He and Joey were very proud that it got them so little time to get it going. So much for being stuffy city scholars.

“He said that Professor Fitz ordered everybody back, and to let the Egyptian diggers open the chamber,” she says, with clear distaste in her mouth. “And then that thing melted their faces.”

Phil has read of stuff like that before.

“Pressurized salt acid,” he says. “An ancient booby-trap.”

“You think Fitz knew about it?” Johnson asks.

“If I know about it he knows about it.”

She turns her face and starts cursing like a sailor, in whispers.

“What did they find inside?” Joey asks.

“Like they’d tell me.” She takes something out of her satchel. “Trip gave me this, though. To ward off the cold, he said.”

Joey grabs the bottle of alcohol from her hand.

“Seamgram’s, nice. That Lieutenant clearly has excellent taste,” he declares.

“Hoping that includes you?” Johnson nudges him. The man blushes, a dreamy expression on his face. “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

Joey blushes harder and Phil chuckles at the sight.

They have a good fire, good drink, and good company. 

“I don’t think this place is cursed,” he says. Something like a booby-trap is men’s design, not the Gods’.

Then, as if to contradict Phil’s complacency at the moment, they hear a barrage of gunfire coming from the American camp.

“Shit,” Johnson mutters. “You two stay here.”

“What?” Phil protests. “ _No_.”

 

+

 

He should have listened to her and stayed back.

The same warriors in black clothes who attacked him in the boat have the whole camp surrounded.

And he’s lying on his face on the ground, his head bruised.

Daisy Johnson helps him to his feet.

“Are you okay?” she asks, brushing her fingers very carefully against the purple-ish spot. It hurts. But the girl’s caresses are so gentle and she looks so worried. He doesn’t remember anyone handling him like this before - not since his mother died, at least.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

She strokes his cheek for a moment, holding Phil’s gaze before turning to the matters at hand.

Matters at hand being that they are surrounded with a veritable army of warriors who have already tried to kill them before.

They’re more and they are better armed. And he’s not just talking about their sickle-swords (is that a Khopesh? Phil struggles behind the girl to get a better look at it), no, they’re carrying rifles as well.

That they are obviously outnumbered and outgunned is easy to guess by the fact that Captain Johnson doesn’t even have her hand resting and ready upon her Colt.

“I know you,” Daisy Johnson says, once more putting her body as a shield to the rest. He hasn’t forgotten how she protected him back in the barge. “You’re the Medjai, right? No one here wants to do any harm. This is just a scientific expedition. A couple of them, actually.”

“A scientific expedition that has already cost lives,” a voice rises from behind the horses.

The main actor discovers herself, a small Asian woman of powerful features and muscled arms.

“My name is Melinda May,” the woman says. “My family has been entrusted with the protection of Hamunaptra for generations.”

Johnson gets closer.

“Hey! I saw you, two years ago, right here,” Daisy says. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

Melinda smirks. “I thought the desert would kill you first, Daisy Johnson.”

“That’s rude.”

The older woman looks around. No one in their camp has been brave enough to raises their voices to the warriors, just Johnson.

“You have one day to leave this cursed place,” the woman tells them. “One day or you die.”

The riders turns around.

Daisy Johnson makes a gesture to follow them or protest their conditions, but Phil grabs her arm and stops her.

 

+

 

He drinks a lot that night.

 _A lot_.

In fact he doesn’t remember being this drunk his whole life.

This trip is full of first times, as it seems, from the beginning.

He knows he shouldn’t, but his head is killing him and the scotch makes it all better.

He’s not the only one. All of the sudden Joey is passed out, curled in a ball in front of the fire.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” Johnson asks, trying to get the bottle away from him.

He touches the bruise on his temple. At least he’s alive, unlike those poor diggers.

“We have tomorrow,” she tells him. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah,” he says, drinking some more. Suddenly he has forgotten if they were drinking gin or scotch.

“Can I ask you a question?” she says, sitting next to him.

“Shoot,” he says. He chuckles a bit because _shoots_ just fits her. Trigger-happy, adventurous Daisy Johnson. What the hell is she doing humoring his fantasies like this?

“Why is this whole thing so important to you? Hamunaptra. The Book of the Dead.”

“My father was a history teacher,” Phil says. God, he must be really drunk, or he’d never ever talk about his father with anyone. “His favorite period was Ancient Egypt. He used to tell me all about the myths of the mummies and the sacred texts.”

“You’re here,” Johnson says. “Your father must be very proud of you.”

“He died when I was nine,” he replies, coldly.

She wraps her fingers around his forearm. “I’m very sorry.”

He gets up.

Wow, woozy.

He looks down at her. He’s still annoyed that she kissed him like that three days ago. Without asking permission. Or without giving him the chance to kiss back but that’s probably just the alcohol talking here.

“Look you, you _Captain Johnson_ ,” he suddenly says, feeling angry out of nowhere. “I know I’m not a badass like you. I’m not a explorer, I’m not an adventurer or a treasure hunter.” He looks at her attire. “I’m not a cowboy. But I am proud of what I am.”

Johnson looks up at him. “And that is?”

Phil plops back down, landing next to her, their faces very close together.

“I’m a librarian,” he declares.

Daisy Johnson gives him a very soft smile. It’s probably just the alcohol but no one has ever looked at him the way she does.

“And I’m going to kiss you, Miss Johnson.”

She bites the inside of her cheek. Does she look expectant, excited, elated? He’s very good at the dictionary.

“Daisy.”

“What?”

“You should call me Daisy first,” she tells him, with a goofy smile.

“ _Daisy_ ,” he breathes, finally. Such a beautiful name.

Then the world goes askew and then it goes pitch dark when he falls, face first, on Daisy’s lap, and after that he remembers nothing.

 

+

 

“I can’t believe you two got me so drunk,” he moans as he tries to focus on brushing the top of the sarcophagus through the blinding pain in the back of his head.

“Oh that’s what happened?” Daisy teases him, exchanging a chuckle with Joey.

They haven’t talked about him saying that he was going to kiss her, and Phil is not entirely convinced he didn’t dream it. It’s better this way, it’s better that nothing happened. It would have been inappropriate. He’s twice her age and they are here to work, to… mummies. They are here for the mummies.

He brushes the last of the dirt off the lid. There’s a rectangular gap on the surface. Phil inserts the box. It’s a key, fitting perfectly. They hear the soft noise of an ancient lock undone.

“Okay, let's lift the lid,” he instructs Daisy and Joey.

They expose the wooden coffin inside the sarcophagus. Phil gets an odd feeling of deja-vu, as if this was familiar.

“Need an extra hand with that?”

The three of them turn around to the figure leaning against the entrance to the chamber.

Daisy walks towards him, excitedly.

“Trip, what are you doing here?” she asks.

“Is it too late to change sides?”

“What do you mean?”

The man comes closer, and Phil thinks he can see fear in his eyes.

“This might sound like an excuse but… I’ve got a bad feeling about my camp, Daisy, and you know me, I never have a bad feeling about anything,” he tells her. Daisy nods. “Those poor diggers. I don’t want the treasure. I just want to survive. Or alternatively, if I’m going to die in this cursed place, I’d rather die besides a friend.”

Daisy smiles at him and takes his hand and squeezes it.

She has obviously unilaterally decided he’s part of the team now.

“There’s no such thing as a curse,” Phil protests.

“He means we’re really happy to have you on the team,” Joey interjects, pushing his own agenda here.

Trip joins them around the coffin.

It’s easier to do the heavy lifting (literally in this case) when they are four, Phil will give him that.

“I don’t like this Fitz guy,” Trip is explaining. “He’s stuffy. But not stuffy good like your guy here.”

“T-thanks.” Phil mutters, disarmed by how genuine Triplett sounds.

“You sure this is safe?” he asks him. “Because I wouldn’t want your face melting off like those diggers, Mister Coulson.”

“Thank you, lieutenant.”

“Wow, aren’t you two awfully pleasant?” Daisy comments, sounding annoyed. Maybe a bit jealous - or maybe there’s still alcohol in his system, Phil concludes.

“It’s quite safe,” he explains. “There would have been a warning on the lid.”

“Good,” Trip says. “Because the other professor keeps talking about this cursed mummy, about one of the undead who, if we brought him back to life, would consummate his curse on us.”

Joey lets out a nervous laugh.

His laughter freezes once they open the coffin.

“Oh my God,” Phil and Joey exhale at the same time.

The two treasure hunters look at them in confusion.

“They buried him alive,” he mutters.

“Phil, look at the lid,” Joey tells him, guiding his gaze towards the message the unfortunate occupant of the sarcophagus has left behind, in blood.

 _DEATH IS ONLY THE BEGINNING_.

Daisy unholsters her pistol.

“If this man were to come back from the dead right now I’d doubt very much shooting at him would do us any good, Daisy,” Phil tells her.

She shrugs, fingering the trigger.

“I can still try, can’t I?”

 

+

 

The American camp has been in constant activity and Coulson has no trouble figuring out exactly what they have found. He tries not to resent them too much but… he’s failing.

“Daisy, can I ask a favor of you?” he says as they sit together outside for a break.

“You mean apart from guiding you through the desert to a mythical city and making sure you don’t die? Sure, be greedy.”

That makes him smile for some reason. She’s very casual, almost cavalier about the fact that she has saved his life a couple of times.

“I understand you have some skills extracting objects, parting them from their owners,” he says.

She tilts her head. It’s becoming a familiar gesture. She’s becoming familiar.

“You mean I know how to steal stuff?”

“I don’t want you to steal anything,” Phil clarifies. “But our rivals have gotten their hands on the Book of the Dead.”

“That’s what you were after,” she says.

“Yes, and before the book gets shipped to Chicago or Washington I’d love to take a look at it, see for myself it's real. But I very much doubt Professor Fitz is going to let me just peruse it to my heart’s content.”

Daisy nods, understanding.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your heart’s content,” she promises.

She makes good on her promise.

At night both camps join together, the American a bit sore Trip left their ranks, but everyone huddling together in case the Medjai appear again.

Phil and Daisy stay out of sight, hiding behind the statue of Anubis that had saved Daisy’s life two years ago. He’s still so intrigued by the mummy they managed to find. He had never seen one like it. Four thousand years old and still decomposing. Whoever he had been in life he was a doomed, cursed man. The spells on the sarcophagus had been chiseled off. There were signs that he had been subjected to Hom-Dai, the worst of all ancient Egyptian curses.

“One Book of the Dead for Professor Coulson, no extra charge,” Daisy says, presenting the object to him.

“I’m not - don’t call me that.”

“What are those?” she asks, sitting by his side on the sand, pointing at the bug skeletons Phil was classifying before she came.

“Scarabs, they were in our guy’s coffin. Flesh-eaters.”

“Ugh. And you said this guy was buried alive, does that mean…?”

Phil nods. “Yes, they put them inside so the scarabs would eat him alive.“

Daisy makes a gesture of disgust.

“He must have done something very naughty,” she says.

Again Phil gets that feeling of deja-vu again, more intense now.

“The kind of curse they subjected him to… I’ve read about it in books but I could never prove it had actually been performed. The ancients feared the curse too much. It’s said that if the victim should ever arise again he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt.”

“All ten? The whole water turning into blood as well?” Daisy asks.

He nods.

Then he puts his findings aside and takes the Book of the Living in his hands.

“What’s the deal with the book?” Daisy asks.

“Professor Fitz has spent years arguing it didn’t exist, that anyone in the Egyptologist community who believed in it was a pariah.”

“I can see how it’s unfair to you, that he got it first,” she says.

He tries not to be swayed by petty academic rivalry. Fitz is half his age and has about twice the titles in the field as Phil has. It would be ridiculous to try to compete.

“I’m just happy I get to touch it,” he says, brushing his fingertips against the pages, wonderfully preserved after all these centuries.

If his father could see him now…

Phil looks up at the woman next to him, without whom he would still be cataloguing books about the 18th dynasty back at the museum’s library. The kerosene lamp sharpens her warm, striking features and she is looking very seriously at him.

“Come on, read a bit,” Daisy says, touching her shoulder to his.

“You think it’s safe?” Phil teases.

As if any evil had ever come from a book.

“I promise I’ll protect you from evil,” she says. “Ancient or otherwise.”

He swallows. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

He goes through some pages, staring at the beautiful writing, and happens upon a passage that sound particularly poetic.

“Ahm kum Ra,” he reads. “Ahm kum Dei.”

And that’s when basically everything goes to hell, quite literally.

As prelude and warning a gust of wind arises around him and Daisy for a moment, and the light of their lamp suddenly goes out. Without it they can perfectly make the figure of Leo Fitz in front of them, no doubt looking for his book.

“What have you done?” he says.

 

+

 

“I told you to leave or die,” Melinda May is saying as she is helping them outrun a swarm of locust. “now you have unleashed the creature we have been fearing for four thousand years.”

Phil is numb, unable to realize the enormity of what has just happened. He’s just a librarian. He’s not meant to bring about the ten plagues of Egypt again.

“I told you, I’ve got him,” Daisy tells him, cocking both her pistols.

“No mortal weapons can kill this creature,” Melinda tells them.

Daisy wipes the dust off her eyes.

“I’m willing to test that theory,” she says.


	4. Chapter 4

“To recap,” Daisy starts. “We awoke an ancient murderous mummy and now he thinks you’re his dead girlfriend.”

Coulson winces.

“That seems to be the case,” he says.

They’re both in the back of the car and he’s trying to help Daisy bandage an ugly cut on her hand from fighting the creature.

The mummy had called Coulson some weird name back there, Anck-Su-Namun, and had tried to get his rotting-corpse hands all over Daisy’s librarian. Not that Coulson is _hers_ , but, you know, he kind of is.

“Don’t forget we have unleashed the ten plagues,” Joey adds from the passenger seat. “All of them. Ten. Diez.”

“Don’t get so caught up in the negative,” Trip tells them from behind the wheel of the car.

“Are you still glad you changed sides?” Joey asks him.

Trip grins. “My face is still unmelted, isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” Joey hurries to confirm. “Completely unmelted. It’s still perfect.”

They have survived the first plague at least.

Nine to go.

Daisy tries to be optimistic.

“I know who was in that coffin,” Coulson says.

They lean back against the back of their seat and during the journey back to the city - thank god they have a car now, and they don’t have to make it in a boat - Coulson tells her the story of Imhotep, high priest and keeper of the dead, and Anck-Su-Namun, the Pharaoh's mistress, of their forbidden love, and the price they had to pay for it.

Anck-Su-Namun was mummified. Imhotep promised to bring her back to life. He stole her body and brought her to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, to resurrect her. But before he could complete the ritual the Pharaoh's guards stopped him and Anck-Su-Namun’s soul remained in the underworld. Imhotep was condemned to endure the Hom-Dai for his crimes and blasphemy.

And now he’s back, intent on finishing what he started, bringing his beloved back from the dead.

It’s all horrifying stuff but Daisy is enthralled by the way Coulson tells it, late in the night and huddled together, even if they have all the plagues of Egypt chasing them.

“Doesn’t it… bother you? To be the reincarnation of this… this dead broad,” Daisy asks.

She knows he sleeps in ladylike clothes but that doesn’t mean he’s okay with some evil mummy wanting him for his girlfriend.

“This dead _broad_ was said to be the most beautiful and remarkable woman in the whole continent, according to the histories of the time of Seti the First. Enough to drive her priest lover to commit the most heinous crimes against the gods.”

“And bring on a curse on us for it.”

“Yeah,” Coulson says, looking in awe of Daisy’s pragmatism. “The point is that… I’m no one. I’ve never done anything remarkable in my life. I could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice or care. So no, being the reincarnation of a beautiful woman who changed history, doesn’t bother me. I’m worried and afraid about how we’re going to get everyone out of this alive but the whole me being Anck-Su-Namun is the least of my concerns.”

“Hey,” Daisy says, covering Coulson’s hand with hers. “For the record I don’t think you’re _no one_. And I would definitely care if you disappeared.”

Coulson nods slightly, like he doesn't know what to do with those words, before looking away.

They drive through the night. She and Coulson fall asleep together, unconsciously curled against each other’s body, lulled by the movement of the journey and by the hushed, animated voices of Joey and Trip in constant conversation in the front seats.

But when they finally arrive at Cairo and get out of the car there are ominous black clouds over them. Not figuratively, literally.

“I propose we go back to my hotel, gather all the ammo we can find and just weather this mummy affair the old fashioned way,” Trip suggests.

It doesn’t seem like a sound plan, but Daisy can’t think of any better right now.

“You go ahead,” Coulson says. “I have something to do first.”

Daisy follows after him.

“Where are we going?”

“To the museum,” he explains.

She has some reservations about that, but she can’t exactly voice them.

“My boss is a stuck up but…” he says. Daisy smiles because if someone is a stuck up by Phil Coulson’s standards that must be a sight to behold. “She’s a good person, she’ll help out.”

“You think anything can help?” Daisy points out. “Because there are mummies and locust and ancient curses to consider here.”

Coulson stops on his tracks and turns to her. His eyes look different than before, darker, deeper.

“I unleashed that thing,” Coulson tells her. “I have to make it right.”

He sounds convinced and responsible and this is the most grown up Daisy has ever seen him, curiously. All through this trip she got the feeling he was just going with the flow in some way. Curious, adventurer, but not much of a leader. Now he looks like one.

“I told you to read from it, I’m sorry.”

“Daisy, this is not your fault.”

“I got you this far, if I hadn’t-”

She can’t finish the thought because suddenly Phil Coulson’s arms are around her shoulders and he is pulling her into a hug. Daisy freezes for a moment - she doesn’t remember the last time some hugged her - and then she relaxes in his arms, resting her cheek on his shoulder. Somehow this feels a hundred times more intimate than when she stole that kiss from him.

His fingers start stroking her short hair. This is more forward than she’s ever seen him - in their whole four days of acquaintance.

“It’s not your fault,” he repeats, while the sky darkens above them, completely, like a moonless night in the middle of the day.

 

+

 

“You!” Coulson exclaims when they see Melinda May standing side by side with his boss Professor Hand, on the staircase of his museum.

Daisy has heard of Victoria Hand, of course, but she has never seen the woman. She’s tall and thin and imposing and can easily understand why Coulson is so scared of her.

“Melinda and I have been working for decades to stop the kind of catastrophe you two have brought on with your foolishness.”

She glances at Daisy and in a moment Daisy _knows_ , she just can tell. Hand knows who she is. She wishes she could stop time and drag Coulson to the next room and explain before someone else does it for her.

“All these years, all my work on Hamunaptra, you told me it didn’t exist, that I was a fool for believing.”

“We were trying to protect the curse,” Hand says. “But you had to go forward with this expedition. And now people are dead.”

Coulson drops his head.

“And I’m not surprised the ultimate culprit is this girl.”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Hand ignores him, keeps her eyes on Daisy.

“Another piece for your collection, Miss Johnson? Another theft? I’m surprised you managed to dupe my subordinate, I thought every museum in the world had your picture by the entrance.”

“What is she talking about?”

Daisy grits her teeth, unable to contain herself.

“You are the thieves here! I’m just try to make sure these pieces stay where they should.”

“ _Daisy_ , please explain.”

“You don’t know about the world famous Daisy Johnson?” Hand asks, with some cruelty. This is not Coulson’s fault. She’s the one who lied. “How dare you take one of my employees for a fool like that? We are the guardians of culture here, you’re just a common thief.”

“You steal art and ancient objects from their countries and ship them off across the sea. For profit. To feel superior. I don’t know but that sounds a lot more like stealing to me.”

“We are _protecting_ culture from a country ravaged by war and revolution,” Hand says.

“Really? That’s your justification?”

“We’re getting nowhere,” Melinda interrupts, looking annoyed at everybody, pulling Hand back.

Daisy feels betrayed. Coulson looks like he is still trying to catch up.

“I can’t believe you of all people would agree with her,” Daisy says.

“I don’t,” Melinda replies. “We don’t have to agree on everything to fight this fight together. And right now there are more pressing matters.”

Coulson looks like a lot of things are starting to make sense all of the sudden.

He grabs Daisy by the arm.

“You lied to me?”

 

+

 

Daisy closes the door of the hotel room besides her, Trip shaking his head sadly, like this is all hopeless. Trip knew who she was. Knew that she’d have to come clean at some point. She knew too, she was just delaying because... because she was enjoying her time with Phil Coulson and didn't want things to change between them.

Coulson is dressing, his old clothes again, buttoning his shirt, and turns his back to her when she enters, all full of anger and modesty. It feels like a decade since she last saw him in that shirt, that vest and jacket.

“I see you’ve got your librarian clothes on again,” she says, trying to start light. "Must feel good, right?"

No reply.

This is worst case scenario.

She knows she should be more worried about the end of the world than about... this.

“Melinda told me there have been more attacks in the city. Imhotep is regenerating.”

He still says nothing, fidgeting with his collar until it looks perfect.

“Why are you here, Daisy?”

“What do you mean? We’re still in this together.”

“No,” he says. “You lied to me. There’s no _together_.”

“Couls-”

He finally turns towards her.

“Just to be clear, I don’t want you here, I don’t give you permission to be here. But you have never cared about permission before,” he snaps.

Daisy takes one step back, feeling sober and desperate. The least she can do is tell the truth now.

“You are right. I should have never lied to you. I should have never kissed you without permission. And I should have never pushed you like I did. I just… I was having a really good time with you. _Because_ of you. I didn’t lie about that.”

Coulson seems to falter in his resolve at that.

She didn’t lie about a lot of things. Important things.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone,” she says. “But can I explain myself first? Then you won’t have to see me ever again. I mean, if we survive the mummy apocalypse.”

He nods, the softness of his face recovered again.

Daisy sits on his bed. Or rather, she guesses, Trip’s bed.

“I was born in China. My mother is Chinese.”

Coulson smiles a bit. “That much I guessed on my own.”

“Good. My father is American. They’re both - not alive, that’s not the point,” she says, and Coulson’s expression softens a bit more. “I grew up with stories of the Second Opium War, and the looting of the Summer Palaces. Lord Elgin ordering to set fire to the Old Summer Palace. So much of my culture destroyed or stolen by foreigners. When I was older I visited London and saw the British Museum - the same place you’re ultimately working for. People around me were in awe of the place. I was in tears, Coulson. I kept thinking _this doesn’t belong here_.”

He leans back against the boudoir. Trying to process everything. His voice is soft when he speaks.

“You steal from museums, Daisy. I’ve dedicated my whole life to - to preserving culture.”

“So have I,” Daisy tells him. “I thought you’d understand that. I was hoping you would, anyway.”

He nods a couple of times, pensive. He sits down by her side.

“So you are part of a secret organization that steals art works-”

“We steal them _back_ , return them to their rightful owners.”

“So you’re not a treasure hunter?” he asks.

Daisy wiggles her eyebrows at him. “It’s a good cover, right?”

Coulson chuckles, shaking his head, like he can’t believe her.

At least he doesn’t hate her.

He shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Hand told me that when the creature is fully reborn his curse will infect all the people on this Earth,” he says.

That’s bigger than their personal issues, she guesses.

“You mean we’re all going to be zombie mummies.”

“Pretty much.”

“Well,” Daisy says, getting up. “I’d better do something about that, then.”

 

+

 

She leaves Coulson resting - and processing the day’s events, not just Daisy’s betrayal, but Hand’s collusion with the Medjai as well - and decides to track down Professor Fitz. Last time she saw him there was a lot of screaming and running for dear life, but he seemed pretty chummy with this Imhotep. She decides to grab Joey and follow that lead.

Trip is waiting for her outside the door.

“Trip, make sure no one gets in or out of this room,” she tells him.

“What if Coulson wants to get out?”

Daisy rolls her eyes. “There’s an evil ancient curse trying to make Coulson his girlfriend, or use him to restore his girlfriend to life, I don’t know. Do not let him get out. Just keep him safe, okay?”

She touches Trip’s shoulder, silently pleading with him.

“You weren’t joking that night on the deck of our ship,” he tells her. “You really are doing this for him.”

Daisy shrugs.

“I was,” she says. “But then we accidentally unleashed a flesh-eating demon together. Now I’m just trying to clean up the mess.”

 

+

 

Looking for Fitz is a bust. And the sun is completely covered. Another plague and proof of Imhotep's growin power. Cairo is in a state of panic she hasn’t seen since 1919. The water from the fountains runs red and Daisy is trying to remember the rest of the plagues left.

“I think we should look for a cat,” Joey says. “A white one.”

Daisy is not sure if she’s too tired or if she’s heard correctly.

“A cat? What are you talking about? This guy can withstand _bullets_.”

“Look, I’ve been around Phil for years. And I have had to listen to his ranting about Hamunaptra and the Book of the Dead and the ancient curses a million times. I think I remember something. This guy is still in the process of regenerating, right?”

Daisy tries not to think too much about the horrible image of an skeleton with mummified flesh hanging from it, slowly turning into actual flesh as the number of his victims grew. The American expedition paid the price for that evolution.

“Yes, I guess he’s still regenerating, and eating people in the process.”

“I read something about those who are brought from the dead, about how until they are fully back to their original bodies, they are afraid of cats, especially white cats. It’s an ancient Egyptian thing. You should ask Phil.”

It’s not much but it’s the best weapon they have come up with so far.

Okay, she thinks, let’s get us a cat.

“Joey, _you are_ a wonder.”

“Lo sé. ¿Qué harían ustedes los gringos sin mi?”

“Hey,” Daisy protests. “I’m not a _gringo_.”

 

+

 

“Trip!” Joey cries when he sees the soldier lying on the floor. The chair and a lamp have been knocked over, clear signs of a struggle inside the room.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Trip says, sitting up while Joey examines the bruises on arm. “But Coulson…”

Daisy notices the door to the bedroom is ajar and her heart leaps to her throat. She grabs her gun and the cat (yeah, that's... badass, she guesses) and kicks the door open, hoping she's not too late.

It's not too late but Imhotep (or 80% of his body, anyway) is hovering over the bed, pinning Coulson down, and getting closer despite Coulson’s obvious grimace of disgust.

“You saved me from the undead,” Imhotep is telling a struggling Coulson. “For that I shall make you immortal.”

There’s very little doubt as to _how_ exactly Imhotep plans to make Coulson immortal, the creature leans in for a kiss and Coulson is defenseless, but before its ugly mummy lips touch the librarian Daisy throws the cat at the creature.

“Back off, you creep!”

Imhotep backs off with a shriek, and then dissolves into a powerful whirlwind of sand that passes through the room, so violent that Daisy can feel the grains scratching her face until it bleeds a bit.

“Hey, are you alright?” she asks, rushing to where Coulson is.

He props himself on his elbows.

He’s shaking.

“Fine, fine,” he reassures her and lifts his fingers to her bloodied cheek. “I know what Imhotep wants from me now.”

“What is it?”

“He wants my body.”

Daisy gives him a look. “ _Evidently_.”

“No, literally,” he tells her. “He wants my body as a vessel for Anck-Su-Namun’s soul, once he gets her out of the underworld.”

Daisy can feel herself frowning until it almost hurts. That mummy has really pissed her off now.

“He’d better start changing his mind about that,” she says, wrapping her hand around Coulson’s knee, trying to steady him.

 

+

 

Victoria Hand buys them enough time to escape the hordes of mummies under Imhotep’s control. And a chance at defeating him. Maybe. In the end she comes through at least, despite their differences. Because what's the point in arguing who should own relics if the whole world is gone.

“Explain to me again why we’re going back to Hamunaptra?” Daisy demands from the back of the car.

“Because that’s where the Book of the Living is. The only thing that can kill Imhotep now that he’s been restored.”

“Joey, can’t you go faster?” Coulson says. “We need to get out of the city.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying.”

And Trip is trying to help, grabbing the wheel for safety despite his broken arm and being squeezed between Coulson and Joey in the front seats.

“You’re going to need a sword,” Melinda May is telling her.

“Didn’t you say-?”

“Once the Book of the Living returns Imhotep to his mortal condition a warrior needs to put him down for good,” she explains. Then nods, thoughtfully. “I’m getting you a sword.”

“Oh shit.”

“Stop the car, stop the car.”

They stop abruptly, Daisy and Melinda flung against the front shuts.

Daisy closes her eyes for a moment, checking nothing is broken and when she opens them again a sea of people is beginning to extend in front of her eyes.

Imhotep leading them, and a swarm of servants in diverses states of mummification movies slowly behind him. By the Prince of Osiris (Daisy was paying attention, thank you) a smaller figure, Leopold Fitz, holding the Book of the Dead in his hands.

“Since when did this guy have a whole army?” she asks Melinda.

“I guess he run out of plagues,” Trip comments.

They exit the car. What can they do? Coulson has a weird expression on his face that Daisy doesn’t like one bit. Imhotep’s face (or what passes for it, he might be restored now but Daisy still see the disgusting skeleton that came alive in front of their eyes back in Hamunaptra) too she doesn’t like one bit. It’s doing the thing where he’s focused on Coulson, as if no one else in the world mattered. That sounds romantic - the whole problem is that he is still in love with Anck-Su-Namun - but not for the unwilling participant or vessel.

“Stay behind me,” she tells Coulson, for what it feels like the eleventh time since they met.

The difference is that this time Coulson doesn’t listen to her.

He walks in front of their group, shielding them from the monster.

“My beloved Anck-Su-Namun. You don’t have to run away from me. I told you I’d make you immortal.”

“He’s not your beloved anything, pal,” Daisy tells him.

Imhotep looks at her for a moment, then tilts his head like he’s decided she’s not worth it, and returns all his attention to his _beloved_.

“Why are you with him?” Coulson asks, confronting Leopold Fitz.

“Because it’s better to serve the devil than be in his path,” the younger man replies cooly. 

Daisy can feel Joey tensing up besides her, like he knows, and quicker than her, what Coulson is going to do.

The cursed Prince extends his arm towards the group.

“Take his hand and he will spare your friends,” Fitz says, acting as translator of his wishes.

“Don’t do it, Phil,” Joey mutters, too low for Coulson to hear, but loud enough that Daisy does.

“Coulson, no.”

She hurries to his side, grabbing him by the shoulder like she wants to shake some sense into him.

“He’ll kill you all if I don’t go with him,” he says.

“He’ll kill us anyway.”

“Maybe, but at least this way I can buy you some extra seconds. I know that’s all you need.”

He wraps his fingers around Daisy’s wristbands and gently pulls her away.

No, she thinks.

We haven’t had enough time.

Five days, that’s all they got.

She needs _more_.

She feels like crying, and she hasn’t cried in decades. Then again, she’s never met anyone like Phil Coulson before.

“Please, don’t do this.”

“Daisy, you have to let me go.”

He slips away, drifting like in a nightmare towards Imhotep.

He mouths some words to her.

Daisy thinks he is saying _come for me_ or _save me_ and yeah, she will. She made him a promise, when this started. She promised she’d protect him.

“Come on, my princess,” Imhotep says. “It’s time to make you mine forever.”

Daisy barely has time to watch the man he’s fallen in love with leave to his possible torture and death before she herself has to fight for her life against an army of mummies.


	5. Chapter 5

He wakes up midway through the ritual - the chants are so familiar to him, but he’s not sure if he’s remembering from his studies or a previous life.

Great, he’s back in Hamunaptra.

And it occurs to him that this might very well be the last day of his life.

He never thought he’d regret that. One of the advantages of an unremarkable life is that he didn’t have many hang ups about leaving it. 

But now he wants more.

More time.

And more-

Imhotep keeps calling him “my beloved” but in the last few days Coulson has known what it really feels like, to be someone’s beloved.

Now he’s chained to a slab of sacred stone, the corpse of Anck-Su-Namun by his side, the high priest and his mummified minions chanting to bring her soul back from the underworld - and into Phil’s body. There’s a sacred pool besides them, containing the souls of the damned, from where Imhotep is hoping to pick his lover’s.

Leopold Fitz is gone. He probably saw the writing on the wall and decided to grab what he could and run. 

Phil hears gunshots.

“Daisy,” he breathes. Then he turns towards Imhotep. “I told you she’d come.”

But it might be too late.

Imhotep has already succeeded in pulling Anck-Su-Namun’s soul from the multitude of souls trapped in the waters of the underworld. Phil can almost taste the pull of it, because he knows at the end of the day, it’s true, he is her reincarnation.

“With your death Anck-Su-Namun will come back to me. And I shall be invincible.”

All that’s left is for Phil to die and vacant the body.

Prince Imhotep raises the sacred dagger (and under different circumstances Phil could appreciate the fine artistry of weapons from the reign of Seti I) and Phil thinks “this is it”.

He closes his eyes, wishing he had said so many things when he had the time. And it was a very short time, but he could have used it saying important things, instead of wasted on petty fights or plotting how to save the world, instead he could have said: _I think I loved you from the moment I saw you_ and _I’ve had the best time of my life_ or…

But there’s no time, _this is it_.

At least Phil thinks so. Until he hears Joey’s voice echoing through the ceremonial chamber.

“The Book of Amun-Ra! I’ve got it, Phil! I’ve got the Book of the Living!”

Phil struggles against his chains, catching a glimpse of Joey on top of the stairs.

“Open the book, Joey!” he screams. “It’s the only way to kill him. You have to open the door and read the inscription.”

“It’s locked. We need the key.”

“It’s inside his robes.”

Joey disappears into a passageway, luring Imhotep to follow him, which makes for the perfect distraction.

“Hello, Professor, “ a familiar voice says and Phil turns her head. “How’s your day going?” Daisy Johnson asks and she breaks the first chain that holds Phil tied to the stone.

“My day has just improved greatly,” he replies, not caring to hide his delight and relief. “Behind you, Captain.”

A sneaky mummy was moving to cut Daisy down from behind. She turns in time, covering herself with her sword and kicking the mummy back towards the pool of water, where once you’re in the underworld won’t let you go.

“I told you,” Daisy says, taking care of the second and third cuffs. “Call me _Daisy_.”

“Daisy,” Phil repeats, letting the wonderful, dear name fill his mouth because for a moment there he thought he would never be able to say it to her face again.

Daisy breaks the last chain with her sword and Phil finally can move and get up from the creepy ceremonial slab.

“Cool sword,” Phil tells her, rubbing his wrist. “Abyssinian?”

“You’re such a dork,” Daisy says and Phil swears she looks like she wants to kiss him. But then she turns serious. “Did he hurt you?”

He was kidnapped and chained and had to endure unwelcome declarations of undying love. But Phil can deal with all that baggage afterwards. After they have left Hamunaptra alive.

He shakes his head.

“No, he didn’t hurt me.”

“Joey is in charge of the incantations,” Daisy tells him, gesturing towards one of the passageways.

“I’d better go help.”

Daisy grabs his hand and pushes one of her knives into his palm.

“Just in case,” she says.

He watches her go off and take on a group of at least six mummies at the same time. Phil stands rooted to the spot for a moment, in awe. He could live four thousand years and he’d never meet someone like Daisy Johnson again.

The next five minutes are probably the most intense of his life.

In sequence:

Joey manages to return Anck-Su-Namun’s soul to the underworld, cutting the ritual short, just like it happened thousands of years ago.

Which, naturally, makes Imhotep pretty angry and murderous towards Joey.

Daisy, despite being tangled in a battle with six mummies, manages to get the jump on Imhotep and save Joey from a very ugly death at his hands.

Joey, skilled hands, got the key to the book from the prince’s robes - at some point where he was halfway strangling Joey.

Together he and Phil open the book. “Be my guest,” Joey says, and they start going through the pages in search of the right spell.

At the same time Daisy is battling an army of mummies and Imhotep, and _losing_ to the latter.

“Keep him occupied!” Phil shouts.

“I’m trying!” she replies while Imhotep lifts her from the ground by the throat.

She escapes that one but not the powerful punch the cursed creature lands on her.

Phil wills himself to focus on the book, and not worry about the substantial injuries Daisy must be receiving right now.

She keeps getting up again, despite Imhotep’s obvious superiority.

“Here it is,” Phil whispers, finding the right words.

The spell works (take that, Bembridge scholars!) and the souls of the damned start doing their job, curling tendrils of doom around Imhotep’s ankles and dragging him towards the water, and Imhotep begins sinking into the sacred pool

“Daisy! No!”

And maybe he’s not a badass, or an adventurer, or a treasure hunter, but he’s a proud librarian and he’s not about to let Imhotep drag the woman of his dreams to the underworld.

He takes Daisy’s sword, fallen to the floor, and aims for a clean hit.

The next five seconds are the most intense of Phil Coulson’s life.

He manages to cut off Imhotep’s hand. A clean hit indeed. Even though it’s the first time Phil has ever held a sword and he looks down at his own hand, stunned.

Daisy seems as surprised by it as him, but she doesn’t waste time and once free of the mummy’s grip she kicks Imhotep in the face (Captain Johnson has class) while she crawls back, away from the pool and into safety. Phil and Joey help her to her feet (she’s received quite the beating) and they retreat as they watch the horrible spectacle of Imhotep being consumed by the souls of the cursed.

He looks up at Phil as he drowns in the underworld. He looks utterly betrayed. 

"Anck-Su..." 

Phil can even get a pang of sympathy and sadness for him - this was his soulmate and instead Phil helped kill him again.

“I’m sorry, I know you loved her,” he tells Imhotep, hoping it will give him a bit of peace at the last moment.

 

+

 

He’s happy to walk out of Hamunaptra for the last time, and happier still when he sees Trip and Melinda waiting for them outside the ruins, holding the camels for the four of them.

Daisy is limping a bit, and the bruises on her face will take a couple of days to heal, but other than that she seems as energetic and reckless as ever.

“Okay now I have to tell you all about how we were able to rescue you,” she says, excited, grabbing Phil by the lapel of his boring librarian jacket. “Trip _borrowed_ a plane from the British Army. One of those scarabs bugs got under Joey’s skin and Melinda had to cut him open to get it out. We found Leo Fitz and we sent him on his way through the desert on a camel, that’ll teach him. Ha.”

“You’ve been busy,” Phil says. “I just… lied there and almost got stabbed by a ceremonial dagger.”

“My damsel in distress,” she teases.

She steps closer, and Phil swears she is definitely going to kiss him now, but she pulls back at the last moment.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, because it’s not like her to be so full of doubt.

She bites her bottom lip.

“I really want to kiss you now,” she says.

“Good,” Phil agrees, wrapping his hands around her waist like he’s read people do in romance novels.

“But I don’t want it to be a stolen kiss, like the first time.”

He brushes her hair - short, messy, full of sand, _wild_ \- off her eyes, thinking he should probably tell her. I think I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you. But now he believes he’ll have time for that. To do it properly like a proper gentleman and librarian.

A lot of time.

Phil smiles at her, feeling, for the first time since he knows her, that he has the advantage here.

“It won’t be a stolen one, I promise. Not this time.”

Daisy pulls him slowly towards her, pressing her mouth against Phil’s in a very unladylike manner.


	6. epilogue

Phil Coulson has never been taken to bed by anyone before.

“So many buttons…” Daisy mutters, undoing the second one, after letting his jacket and then his vest fall to the floor. Too many ridiculous clothes getting in her way, stopping her from _getting her way_ with the scholar.

His room is bare - he spends the meager museum wage on books - and the midday sun falls through the window, reflected on the glass jar next to the bed. They’re just happy the plague-inspired dark clouds are gone now, and the Cairo sun shines unobstructed when they finally come together like this.

They’re two days out of Hamunaptra and the only reason they haven’t done this sooner is that Daisy was recovering from her injuries (and they were travelling with Trip and Joey always by their side, though Daisy has no doubts the other couple has similar complaints about the lack of privacy during the journey, and they had more reason to be cautious than her and Phil). But she’s glad they have waited instead of stealing some moments in a tent in the middle of the desert, with sand everywhere and the smell of camel on their clothes. She’s glad they are in Phil’s house, surrounded by his books and maps and trinkets. 

“ _Too many_ buttons,” she complains, frowning, her fingers working their way to the last one.

She traps him between her legs, straddling his lap, rocking her hips against his groin like she wants to make him go mad with lust. She’s still wearing her usual Legionnaire-inspired attire, even if these are clean (ish) clothes this time. Phil wraps his fingers around her leather wristbands, admitting he really finds her very attractive in those, wanting to feel them under his skin as they kiss.

To him the past few days have been like a strange nightmare that precedes the good dream. From almost getting ceremonially-stabbed and his body used as a vessel for someone else’s soul to being here, in a quiet city room, in this bed… he guesses it was a bit of an honor, that the royal priest Imhotep considered him his soulmate, but he’d easily exchange immortality to be with a rude, foul, scoundrel of a treasure hunter like Daisy Johnson.

Phil is smiling at her, a bit sheepishly, and Daisy wonders what notion has taken hold of that beautiful brain of his this time. She almost lost him, she thinks with a sudden shiver, kissing his eyebrow. A few more seconds and that dagger would have taken Phil from her, forever. And she knows it’s mad to think like that about someone she knew for only a few days but she can’t help it, she still shakes with fear thinking what could have happened to him.

“Daisy?” he asks, brushing his mouth carefully against her jaw.

“Yes?”

He tries to meet her eyes, but she keeps kissing him - he’s not complaining, he’d rather she didn’t stop, actually - and he has to get the words between kisses.

“Despite my... world-weary demeanor... which might have... _misled_ you... about... the range... of... my... expertise... on - on this matters... I must… _confess_... I haven’t…”

Daisy pulls at his bottom lip, shutting him up.

“You haven’t done much of this?” she suggests.

Phil nods.

“I have a dreary confession to make,” he says, kissing her back, gradually more comfortable with it, tangling his hand in her hair and pulling her towards his mouth. Daisy smirks against him, appreciative. “You might have guessed that already but the day I got you out of prison…”

“Yeah?”

“When you did… that… to me. That was the first time I’d…”

He doesn’t finish the thought and it takes Daisy a moment to understand what he’s trying to say. 

“Was that your first kiss?” she asks.

His face turns pink-ish. Daisy can feel the heat in his ears when she grabs his face.

“I’m sorry, had I known it I would have been…” she looks at those tempting lips. “Gentler.”

Phil snakes one arm up her back, still a bit baffled by the freedom to touch like this.

She kisses him with gentleness now, cupping his face like he’s so fragile. And then with filthy expertise, which set his mind on fire, wondering where she picked up those tricks. She bites his bottom lip until it’s red-ish and a bit swollen, then runs her tongue over the sensitive spot. Phil would like to spend hours being kissed like this by Captain Johnson, but he would also like other things to happen, selfishly. He might be inexperienced, but he knows what he wants.

Daisy seems to understand, and slowly parts his shirt, revealing the body she has only glimpsed (and selfishly stared at) this past couple of days.

“All this for me?” she asks, running her hands over his chest.

He nods, like he’s giving her permission.

She kisses the soft, gray layer of hair over his chest, smiling when her lips brush his nipple and the bed shifts under her, Phil squirming at the touch. She lifts her head, wanting to see his face as he is touched like this for the first time. She meets the softness of his belly, her hands rough with desert and secrets. She watches Phil’s eye widen and darken with desire as she slips her fingers under his clothes. She kisses him hard again, one hand inside his trousers and the other freeing him from them. Phil hisses when she rubs her palm against the tip of his cock and it’s nothing like when he does this himself. _Oh Daisy_ , he thinks dramatically, like a heroine in a romance novel, _I’ve been so lonely without you_.

“No one has ever done this to you?” she asks, his mouth close to his ear, voice dark and dripping, squeezing his cock for a moment until he lets out a strained gasp.

“I have… read books about it.”

Daisy smiles. The lonely librarian reading dirty books on his free time. She wants to hear all about that. What was in those books? Maybe he’d like to enact some of those scenes with her. But there will be time for that. She closes her lips around his collarbone, mimicking the gentleness of her hand.

“There’s some stuff you can’t find in books, professor,” she tells him, twisting her hand.

He kisses the side of her hair. “I’m beginning to realize that now,” he says, full of humor.

He’s beginning to relax into it, too, the jittery virgin shaking under Daisy’s hands settling down a bit. He jerks his hips up, following her rhythm and tilting his head so he can kiss Daisy’s neck, sucking on the spot under her ear - did he read that in a book, too? - until Daisy herself feels her throat tight with frustrating desire. But she doesn’t want to rush this. 

Phil threads his fingers through her hair again, as she touches him in long slow strokes, feeling the sweat beginning to pool on the back of her neck. The room has suddenly gone very hot in a moment. He knows his own body, and he tries to extend this wonderful moment as much as he can -

He lets out a cute little whimper when he comes, burying his face into Daisy’s shoulder, spilling himself all over Daisy’s hand.

Daisy remembers how good it feels, the first time you climax while you’re with another person, and she feels a bit jealous of Phil. She didn’t have that on her first time. 

But then he looks up at her with a troubled expression.

“Is it over?” he asks, sounding completely heartbroken.

She chuckles.

“Of course it’s not over, we’re just getting started,” she says, licking the side of his neck.

She kisses him hard as he calms down. He’s a mess and she uses the jar of water to help him clean up a bit, peeling the last layers of clothes off. He blushes again when he’s completely naked and he tugs at Daisy’s shirt.

“Unfair,” he mutters, as he undoes the buttons. “Too many…”

She smirks, proud - her lovers’ impatient normally has to do with their own pleasure, and not how desirable she is. Phil looks like he can’t decide where he wants to touch her first.

She guides his hand to her left breast. He shudders at the contact.

“All this… for me?” he asks, in awe.

“Yes,” Daisy tells him, chasing his mouth. “All of it.”

She keeps her hand on top of his as Phil moves his fingers over her chest, carefully rubbing his thumb over her nipple. He’s curious and not shy at all about it, exploring the curve of her breast, down her ribcage, and the taut muscles of her stomach without shame. Daisy grins against his mouth, pleased he’s not as prudish as he looks.

Not even close.

He slips the suspenders off her shoulder next, pulling the shirt over her head. Her beauty takes his breath away. Her body is so muscled and tanned and young and Phil truly feels like a naughty librarian for just staring at her. She takes his hand and he notices she’s blushing a bit as well, which makes him feel a bit better. He starts noticing the scars from her many adventures, drawing a map all over her skin. He has lived in this city for decades yet the first time Phil notices how wonderful and honey-like the light in Cairo is at noon is when he sees it spilling over Daisy’s naked body. He begins tracing one of the scars, a pink line across her shoulder.

Daisy stops him. “I’ll tell you all about it later,” she says, putting his hand on his chest and pushing him back against the mattress.

He sighs, thinking how not two days ago he was lying on a slab of stone, chained and about to have his body emptied and filled with an evil creature’s mistress’ soul. Complicated, he knows. This seems simple by comparison. Daisy kissing his stomach feels simple and logical.

This is going to change his whole world, Daisy thinks, as she wraps her hand around his cock and drops her lips to the tip. Phil makes a strained sound like someone has just punched him and when he lets out the air it sounds a lot like swearing.

“Are my ears deceiving me?” she teases him, “Have Bembridge scholars learned how to swear?”

“I’m no Bembridge scholar,” Phil reminds her, like she wanted him to. She rewards him by licking the length of his shaft. “Oh god - _fuck_. Fuck.”

“I guess that answers it,” she says, taking his cock in her mouth.

She sets out to make this prudish librarian moan every curse words he has ever learned.

It’s not very difficult.

He’s definitely read about this in his books, and often thought about what would feel like, but this is quite the improvement on his fantasies and literature.

Daisy sucks him off slowly, trying to make this new thing last for him, and herself enjoying the absolutely control she has over him right now. He’s beautiful, thick and soft and tasting salty from his earlier climax and the sweat on his skin. Daisy wants it to last as well but when Phil starts slipping into Coptic she knows it’s time to stop, because as much faith as she has on his stamina even for his age, she doesn’t she’ll get a third erection out of him this afternoon. She pulls away and he makes a little disappointed noise.

She takes care of what remains of the rest of their clothes until they are both completely naked in the golden, but fading, sunlight.

“You’re really going to like this part,” she says, covering him with her body until their hips are touching and his cock is caught between them, the pressure delightful. She lets him breathe for a moment, so that he won’t just come immediately as soon as she touches him again.

And he might not have done this before but Phil is a quick study - she liked that about him immediately, that he was always catching up to her so easily - and he wraps his hands around Daisy’s waist and rolls his hips against hers to get some friction.

Her breasts pressed against his bare chest feel amazing and he moves his hands up her back, wanting to feel the line of her spine, and he moves them down her back, palming her buttocks in a way that makes Daisy let out a small, contented sigh.

“Do you want to fuck me, professor?” she asks.

Phil cups her face with one hand, brushing his thumb along her lips.

“I’m not a professor and you have such a filthy mouth,” he teases her.

Her brow furrows a bit.

“Phil…” she says, needy. She wants him to say it. She has been thinking about this, ever since she saw him in that ridiculous nightgown, about how it would feel like to have him inside her.

“I want to fuck you, Daisy,” he says, casually, like it’s so obvious and she’s a fool for even asking. He drops his fingers from her face to her collarbone. “I just don’t know how to…”

She smiles. He knows what’s expected of him. He’s supposed to be the big, strong man who just takes what he wants, and she is supposed to be the inexperienced pure flower.

She kisses the bridge of his nose.

She’s never met someone like Phil and she’s never really done something like this.

“I feel like someone has bestowed a great honor upon me,” she tells him. “I’m not sure I deserve it.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,” he comments, a bit annoyed. This whole virginity deal - he doesn’t want it to be an obstacle between them.

Daisy chuckles. As if he could have hidden it from her of all people. He trembles and blushes like an inexperienced teenager. It makes her so excited - like this is her first time too. If her first time had been any good. Maybe she is trying to rewrite her own history, letting Phil know that he’s the first one to make her feel this way. She guesses that’s the thing about falling in love, it changes your past as well as your present.

She guides his cock between her legs, wanting him inside her now, wanting them to be together like this .

“Am I going to like this part?” Phil asks, smirking, but with just the slightest hint of doubt that makes Daisy’s heart ache for him. She wishes she could have rescued him from his dusty existence years ago. But of course they had to meet in such dramatic circumstances.

“ _Definitely_ ,” she says, kissing his mouth as she sinks into him.

He holds her close to him at first, just enjoying the extraordinary feeling of being engulfed by her warmth, in a way that he didn’t imagine possible (the books were _so wrong_ ).

Daisy gives him a moment to get used to her, exhaling to loosen up so that he won’t feel too much pressure. Phil’s hands go immediately to her waist, digging his fingertips into her flesh like he wants to make sure she’s not going anywhere. She moves her hips experimentally, listening as her new lover whines through his teeth at the sensation.

“I can’t believe it’s only been one week since I met you,” he says, chuckling a bit.

“Perhaps you would a liked a more proper, longer courtship, Mr Coulson.”

“Oh God _no_ ,” he confesses, laughing a bit hysterically, trying to keep his mind of how good it feels to be inside of her and her moving above him, or he fears he might just completely unravel.

She suddenly pins his arms to the mattress, hard, aggressively, wonderfully violent, moving her hips in short, fast movements. The way she smiles when she drops her head to kiss him, with teeth even, the way her fingers dig into his wrist to keep him still… this is the girl who stole his first kiss through the bars of a cell and Phil is suddenly very happy she’s here, alongside the Daisy Johnson who always puts her body as a shield between him and danger, and the Daisy who holds his hand tenderly and tells him he’s not a nobody. This is the only time he gets to have a first time in bed, he wants all of them with him.

He doesn’t last longer and that’s okay, Daisy was not expecting him to. He gets this little surprise expression when he comes inside her, as if he can hardly believe how good it feels. It makes something burn inside of Daisy, because she’s not used to anyone treating her the way Phil Coulson treats her. She should have known that wonder would extend to bed. She will have time to show him how to pleasure her, but she’s overwhelmed enough today, so she just has Phil watching as she touches herself to her own climax, satisfied that he is with her when it happens, collapsing on his shoulder afterwards.

They stay like that for a couple of minutes, just feeling their bodies relax and start to fit against each other. Phil wraps one arm around her, holding Daisy tenderling, in a way that makes her feel like something inside her is melting and she hides her face in his neck for a second, blushing.

“Not bad for a stuffy librarian,” she tells him.

Coulson rests his hand on her stomach, dropping his head to catch her lips with his.

“And you were surprisingly gentle for a rude, rough, treasure-hunting scoundrel.”

“I’m really glad we weren’t both turned into mummies,” she says. They wouldn’t have had the chance to do this, for starters.

“I’m glad you found that box in Hamunaptra and that Joey bought it and that I found you. I’m so glad I found you,” he tells her.

Phil Coulson hadn’t been taken to bed before today. But Daisy Johnson had never heard anyone say those words to her until now.


End file.
